Date of Award

2020

Degree Type

Capstone Project

First Advisor

Dr. Bahram Nassersharif

Abstract

Greystone of Lincoln approached URI Students with a problem statement hoping that they could work on a solution for a specific issue. They wanted to work with a team to design and build an Automated Inspection System capable of detecting and removing chips inside of a fuel union. These fuel unions are used for automotive applications, and are supplied to some of the world’s leading automotive manufacturers, so it is imperative that these fuel unions have no defects when they are shipped. The current Quality Control process employed at Greystone involves a worker checking every part that is manufactured by hand, which is time consuming and inefficient. An Automated Inspection System would increase the efficiency and accuracy of the process, while saving Greystone money in the long run. The Engineering Team at Greystone gave the team a tour of their facility and walked team members through the automated inspection processes already in place for some of the other parts that they produce. The team also conducted in depth literature and patent searches to gain more knowledge in the field. They brainstormed many design processes and the tradeoffs between them in order to find an optimal design. After each member designed various different processes, a few different feasible concepts were selected. Two main concepts were generated and shown to the engineering team at Greystone. To correctly identify defects within the fuel union, a camera and software capable of comparative imaging was purchased. The team’s primary goal is to configure the software to detect parts with a chip inside, while minimizing good parts being falsely labeled as defective. At the end of this project, a fully functional inspection machine should be in production, including an area to scan for defects, a removal of defective parts from the main operating line, and a possible automatic removal of defects from the defective parts.

Comments

Sponsor: Greystone; John Afonso

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